How To Power A City

Director Statement

As a documentary filmmaker, I focus on stories reflecting positive social development. My films follow characters who confront issues affecting their lives, often taking brave actions and creating impact far beyond their own doorsteps. I see film as a tremendous catalyst for climate action. My hope with “How To Power A City” is to tap into the visual potential of film to help audiences see what energy transformation looks and feels like.

In “How To Power A City,” I was motivated by curiosity about clean and renewable energy and a deep commitment to environmental justice and restoration. I wanted to create a film that allows others with the same interest to understand firsthand and to hear from people who have found ways to bring clean energy to their communities. As climate change intensifies, energy issues are woven into all facets of addressing it. The people I followed in “How To Power A City” successfully found ways to use solar and wind power to do more than create electricity.

Finding accurate information is a significant challenge to adopting renewable energy, as is learning from personal and human-centered stories rather than policy or investment news. Science should not be political, but it is. Media about clean energy is perpetually politicized, and misinformation is growing. Myths fostered by the fossil fuel industry are deeply dug into public consciousness, even with volumes of evidence disproving them. The public suffers as much from the poor quality of our information as we do from the poor quality of our air.

In writing “How To Power A City,” I wanted to create a new narrative and followed a “solutions journalism” approach in which I looked at the solutions to the problems rather than the problems themselves. The dangers posed by climate change are well documented. We need to know about people enacting solutions.

“How to Power A City” is intended to take viewers on a journey to see how renewable energy works within and outside current energy systems. It combines character-driven, first-person perspectives, allowing the audience to see wind and solar projects up close and to understand from a more observant, less politicized perspective. In addition, audiences will hear directly from people successfully using solar and wind power and perhaps can use these stories to support their own approaches and get us out of the mess we have created with fossil fuels.